2019 Imported Oktoberfests Blind Tasting

My local shop had a Benediktiner beer on recently-think their hefe. Seems their Oktoberfest came along with the deal. I didn’t bite on that purchase for my tasting based on some NBS posts.

It’s not getting any fresher but if I get a second wind for a new tasting, I might grab a four-pack.

 

Yeah, I liked it going into the tasting but it still surprised me by hanging with my faves. I did the final placement after spending enough time with each beer, but if you see my notes on the Benediktiner it seemed to be kind of slow out of the gate . It does tend to grow on you, though. But at $6 a 4-pack that does make it easier to drink it 2 cans at a time .

 

I’ll have to double-check but if it was $6 at my place... hell, if it was under $10... I’ll find an edible hat to consume

 

I suppose it is over the Vollbier threshold, but I’m not being too particular in this case. Although, it does make me wonder the specific inspiration for their beers. Nothing they brew resembles Stiegl, nor any other regional breweries in Salzburger Land. I wonder if their Vienna moreso resembles the type that existed in 1938 when the family left Austria, or if its much more of a recent craft-motivated inspiration.

 

It does look like it has a golden/dark golden color going by other pictures online. Concerning the hoppiness it's difficult to know how much hop flavor would have been present in the old beers. If we look at numbers from Thausing referenced in Wahl and Henius book and look at the Vienna beer specifically, and focus on the OGs between 12.5%-13.5% (Vienna lager) we have a span of 300-400 grams of hops per HL.



For reference we could look at this article from 1997 about the brewing of Pilsner Urquell.

So 350 gram per HL of whole Saaz hops (a hop used also for Austrian beers), with a late addition. The Pilsner Urquell did not become famous for being mildly hopped. And looking at the span for Bohemian beers of 11.5-12.5% (Bohemian lager) in Wahl and Henius, you see 350-500 gram per HL. What's more interesting about the Bohemian lager numbers are those for the 10.5% schankbier, with a span of 300-400 gram for such a weakly brewed beer.

That would depend on the OG imo (which they don't list). I imagine with an abv of 5.2%, and being a craft lager, the OG is around 13%. For comparison Brooklyn Lager is 5.2% with an OG of 13% (no doubt helped by the caramel malt). As mentioned before in Austria today they are brewing their Märzenbiere to around 4.9-5.2% abv with OGs in the mid 11s-12%.

Modern brewing has increased the degree of attenuation substantially, yet in many styles the abv has only slightly increased since they have also reduced the OG. If a brewery today brews a beer to a stylistically appropriate OG they can expect the abv to be higher than it would have been back in the day, and slightly higher than beers from established breweries, but as long as it is only slightly higher (or even the same as some of those beers), I fail to see how one can fault them for getting the OG right. If Egger brews a Märzen beer of 11.5% plato and 5% abv (could just as easily have been 4.8-4.9, for the sake of argument), and Von Trapp brews a Vienna lager at 13% plato (my guess) and 5.2% abv, the abv of the Von Trapp is a non issue imo. In fact I would argue that it would represent a more historically accurate relationship between OG and abv than the Egger, Zipfer or Gösser.

If we look at two Vienna lager beers coming out of Austrian breweries today (both of which are relatively new beers in the market from what I've gathered) we find:

Both beers are clearly influenced by the brewing standards of today, but you can see how Schwechater at least has upped the OG compared with a contemporary Austrian Märzen, bringing it closer to an historical Vienna lager, yet in doing so they have brought up the abv to 5.5%.

 

Good luck with that. I have several cans in the basement, but it's sold out around here.

 

I haven't been able to find it anywhere either, but I noticed it was listed in the World Market "Oktoberfest" sale e-mail I received over the weekend -- any World Markets near you?

 

I used to be able to find Benediktiner, but it seems that it has fallen off all the local store shelves. That and Köstritzer have vanished.

 

Probably because most of the beers on their shelves are the same ones from 10 years ago.

Seriously, that's one spot I always remember to check dates.

 

I've always wondered how the "dark horse" Giesinger's stacks up. After all, because they're in town they've been pushing to actually have theirs served at THE Oktoberfest. I've had it by itself, but have no reference point for how it compares to the others.

 

I’m usually very anal about checking dates, but I mistakenly grabbed Friesing’s “Export” which I thought was their Festbier.

Got home and noticed what looks like the Julian date indicating it was bottled in June...of 2018.

Wasn’t TERRIBLE, but I didn’t finish it because I was only going to have one more beer and I wanted something better than that. It poured cloudy too, which I highly doubt it would if it was fresh.

Oh well. Only bought two bottles.

 

Yike!

 

Drank the Hacker-Pschorr and really enjoyed it. And also have had Erdinger as well (more pale, lighter taste, was less enthused about it, though decent). Plan on more Hacker-Pschorr, and trying one of the Ayinger (it's available to me locally). Plan on getting a six of Paulaner, and of Weihenstephaner as well as they're easily had.

 

To reiterate what's already been reported, Erdinger's "Oktoberfest" beer is a Weizen in style.

 

FTFY.

 

Just had my first Benediktiner last night, and was quite pleased. It definitely holds it's own among other import festbiers I've had. Need to do a head-to-head against the Hofbrau Munich Okto I also have on hand.
Got my Benediktiner 4-pack at Total Wine, so if there's one near you guys check them out.

 

Um, no -- it's not a Wiesn Fest either -- c'mon people, wrangle your vowels! ;-)

 

Dang, my bad. I forgot that I'd read here about Erdinger's 'Okto' actually being a wheat beer.